Coffee and tea are consumed in the United States and worldwide in increasing volume due to growth in population, popularity of coffee and tea beverages, and by the popularity of pairing various flavors with coffee and tea. Popular flavors include but are not limited to vanilla, hazelnut, cinnamon, fruit and berries, spices and herbs.
Traditionally, coffee roasters and tea packers infuse flavors into their products by means of liquid or powdered flavoring agents. These flavoring agents are applied to the coffee and tea prior to packaging and resale. Coffee beans can be flavored in whole bean form or in ground form, depending on the desire of the roaster and perceived consumer preferences. Tea packers can flavor prepared dry tea leaves or herbal blends (popularly known as herbal teas, but lacking Camilla Sinensis botanical, aka “tea”). The tea can be flavored in loose leaf form or in tea filter bags. Both flavored coffee and tea products can be intended for hot or cold consumption.
Flavoring of coffee and tea can also be accomplished during the brewing cycle. There exist flavoring agents that are placed into, and occasionally integrated with, paper coffee and tea filters. However, such methods have their shortcomings. Using the filter paper to absorb the flavoring agent for release during the brewing process involves significant expense in manufacturing such a “flavored filter.” The proliferation of numerous sizes and shapes of commercial and home paper coffee and tea filters makes it impractical to manufacture a flavored filter to accommodate all potential brewing circumstances. Furthermore, many coffee and tea filters are not made of paper and are designed to be re-used. Therefore, flavored filters may not be applicable to those situations.
Flavored inserts tend to be of a uniform size and do not readily present consistent flavoring quality for the wide variety of brew batch sizes that can range from a single 4.8 ounce serving for home applications to tens of gallons in commercial applications. This renders the flavored insert impractical from a production perspective and unattractive for the end user because of the uncertainty in delivering a consistent flavoring over different brew and serving sizes.
A flavored insert also fails to address the challenge of dispersal of flavor given a specific brew time and volume of brew water. The physical form of a flavored insert restricts the flavoring agent's ability to disperse throughout the brew basket and saturate sufficiently to release flavor. To compensate for this challenge, the flavored insert must contain significantly more flavoring agent or a flavoring agent in a significantly higher concentration. This drives up the price in manufacturing a flavored insert, making it less appealing to the end user.
Brewable food products include ground coffee and cut tea. The products may be sold in loose form or in specific serving size pouches (e.g., a tea bag or fractional package). Coffee roasters and tea packers typically select a specific profile of coffee or tea based on price, quality, availability or taste as a “base” upon which to apply a flavoring agent. The end user of packed brewable food products is typically a retailer that sells cups of brewed flavored beverages such as coffee and tea or a consumer who brews the beverage for personal consumption. Whatever the situation, the end user is limited to the pre-flavored coffee or tea foundation selected by the coffee roaster or tea packer. Cafe operators and specialty coffee/tea retailers such as restaurateurs, grocers, and cafe owners wishing to provide a flavored coffee/tea selection must purchase a dedicated inventory of perishable coffee or tea. The cash-flow consequences of carrying a large and perishable pre-flavored inventory make it prohibitive or unattractive for many retailers to satisfy the flavored coffee and tea demands of consumers. Similarly, consumers wishing to purchase flavored coffee and tea for home consumption must purchase a specifically flavored coffee and tea product. The ability to have on hand a variety of flavored coffee/tea products is limited to those who can afford and reasonably consume numerous packages of various flavored coffees and teas.
Flavoring may also be added to coffee and tea after it has brewed. While liquid flavorings (i.e., flavoring agents in liquid form) are currently available for coffee and tea drinkers, they typically contain sweeteners. Regular consumers of flavored coffee and tea may prefer their products free from sweeteners. Likewise, flavored creamers or whiteners are available, but do not satisfy consumers who prefer to enjoy their coffee and tea without a whitener or creamer. Furthermore, attempts at using non-sweetened, non-whitening flavoring agents applied to the prepared, liquid coffee or tea are typically unsatisfying due to an inability to properly mix the hot beverage and the difficulty of measuring liquids into an individual cup or serving vessel. It is difficult and dangerous to shake hot liquids and stirring does not sufficiently incorporate the flavor into the coffee or tea beverage.
Consumers desiring a flavored coffee or tea beverage would thus benefit from the choices allowed if flavoring were performed at the time of brewing rather than the time of packaging. It is therefore desirable to provide a flavoring agent that can be utilized during the brewing process to impart flavor to a beverage made from a brewable food product. It is further desirable to provide a flavoring agent that is broadly applicable in flavoring brewed beverages, such as coffee and tea, under any brewing method. It is further desirable to provide a flavoring agent that is simple for the brewer or user to employ in flavoring any size batch of brewed beverage to a consistent flavoring quality. With particular regard to coffee, it is further desirable to provide a flavoring agent that does not need to be integrated directly into the whole coffee bean.